


The Wolf-Lord And The Loathely Lady

by VIII (Valkyrien)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Arthuriana Goes Well With Faerie I Find, F/M, Freely After My Favourite Version Of 'Sir Gawain And The Loathely Lady', Or Is he?, Take The Ending For What You Will, Unreliable Narrator, faerie tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8153089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/VIII
Summary: A reinterpretation of Sir Gawain And The Loathely Lady.





	

 

 

 

   And it happened in the days following the ascension of the young King in the North, when the lands Beyond-The-Wall had been purified and the lost lords and ladies Stark all had been found again and returned to their rightful seat of Winterfell and that once great house remade as proud as ever before although with all the sorrow of remembrance still to be fully healed, that King Bran himself left his Queen and castle and rode out with a small host to inspect the Wall and its keeps, for the Winter War had ravaged both lands and holdings and cost countless lives, and much work was yet needed to make necessary reparations.

 

 

   King Bran had made it his noblest cause in those days to seek to remake all that had been broken in the North, earning him the name of King Bran the Rebuilder, and despite his few years and the failings of his body, he was already known to be a wise and kind King to his people, and so they kept faith with him that all he sought to accomplish could be done, and gladly followed him wherever he would go to see how best he could provide aid.

 

 

   Though the Winter War had at last been won, it had taken a toll greater than any could have expected, and through a promise made to his brother the once-Lord Commander of the Night's Watch the King was determined to see the Wall made strong again when it had served so well as a shield, and so he took the time needed to ride the length of it with his men and make arrangements for repairs and even the complete rebuilding of some of the keeps too damaged to save. It was on this great journey that the King at last succumbed to an exhaustion which had plagued him for many days of long labours and hard riding, for he was not a man who shirked from the tasks he set before himself and he afforded himself no respite, and he slipped into a fever that his followers could not heal on the road with what little skill they had, and so when at last on the fifth day they came to a keep they had all but forgotten yet existed, having been determined to press on for a sudden storm had meant they could not go back whence they had come, they had little choice but to stop there for his sake.

 

 

   “What is this place?” asked the King's men, wary of the walls they approached, the abandoned and half-ruined keep that had not even been on the King's own plans to inspect, somehow overlooked as though it had never been, and none but the King's Hand, the Greenseer Jojen Reed, best beloved companion of the King, knew aught of this grim and derelict place, but he looked upward to the only sign of life remaining there - a tattered banner that might once have been golden with a dark sigil worn away by the wind still tearing at it with cruel fingers - and told them soft as ever he spoke,

 

 

   “This is the Nightfort. We will stop here and tend the King,” and though the men would have pressed on further for fear of the air of sad neglect and death which hung about the place, none had the authority to question him with the King deep in delirium and Jojen Reed his most trusted second among them, and so they did as they were bade and pressed beyond the great gates, open and ruined as though they had hung broken from their hinges for long years past memory and not only a few, and entered the yard half-expecting to be met with wights but finding not a soul.

 

 

   Bare as the yard so were the buildings, but they located the great hall and made to bear the King within, and it was with ill ease that they did so, for as some remarked,

 

 

   “This place is like a tomb for all we've not seen a single body,” and again it was Jojen Reed only who spoke against their growing fear and dislike, for he knew now the whole of this place and its meaning, and so he told them all,

 

 

   “This is no tomb - the Nightfort was gifted to King Stannis Baratheon while he was at the Wall, and it is here that our own dear King passed into the lands beyond, years ago. There is nothing here that can now harm us. Only memory,” and they heeded his words, for he was wise beyond his years same as their King, but they trusted them not, for the cold stillness of the Nightfort seemed to them to steal their valour and remind them too much of all the worst that the war had wrought, and so they hastened to bring their ailing King into the great hall for the prospect of building a fire and tending to him as best they could.

 

 

   The doors gave easily, not having been barred, but when they entered with King Bran carried between them on a pallet hastily built from rough-cut branches as they made their way there, they saw that a fire already roared within the massive hearth, as if made ready for their arrival, and a figure sat before it as though awaiting their presence, and they were gripped anew with fear for there had been no trace of any living person here yet that they had seen, only an echo of death and despair long gone stale, and those who walked at the fore of their party gripped the pommels of their swords and swore oaths for what they saw unnerved them so.

 

 

   For what a figure there sat, a lady in a gown of white seeming almost grey against the pale of her, and it seemed that she wore a mantle drawn up about her of deepest black and wrought with winking silver, and she hailed them in a soft voice that nevertheless filled the hall.

 

 

   “You are welcome, my lords, to the Nightfort,” she told them, and perhaps they might have answered in courtesy despite their unease had they not drawn near enough by then to see that there was no mantle but her hair a wild morass of black and hung with clumps of ice that did not melt despite the heat of the fire and caught the light to throw it back like the shine of precious metal, and that her skin was cured white-blue with deathly cold where it was not marred over her neck and the side of her face with the grey scales of disease, and they drew their swords then against her, those who did not carry the King, and made as if to strike her down where she sat, crying out that here was a wight indeed or else some evil witch, and they would have killed her had Jojen Reed not sprung forward with his own sword and staff drawn in defence of her.

 

 

   “Neither wight nor witch is this, and you will not murder a lady unarmed in sight of your King!” he thundered, and he raised his voice so rarely that it broke the spell of their terror and the violence it had inspired, and they put away their swords despite their remaining fear and hung their heads, for the lady merely beheld them gravely still with her deep blue eyes, and they were both too ashamed and too repulsed to meet her gaze.

 

 

   “And who is the lady of the Nightfort?” Jojen Reed asked her, for the eyes of a Greenseer are not those of common men, and they see things as they are, and so he knew that he had no cause to fear the sight of her for sorcery, but because he was also a good man, he did not turn from the horror of the scales upon her either, though they made her ugly and frightful to behold.

 

 

   “I am the lady Shireen,” she replied, and though she had come so close to death and she had been so insulted by the King's men, the pride in her bearing had not given way to it, though there was a sadness in her eyes that was almost unbearable to see.

 

 

   “Well met, lady Shireen,” Jojen Reed greeted her with a bow,

 

 

   “Can we be welcome in your hall still after we have made so poor an impression?”

 

 

   “Welcome you are, and welcome to stay, Jojen Reed, for I see that you have brought with you the King in the North, and these are his lands and halls - in truth I could not turn you away,” the lady Shireen told them, and her voice was pleasant as her aspect was not, but still the men shuddered to hear it, though she gave no indication that she noticed, saying only,

 

 

   “But I see that you have come late to my hearth, and the King is ailing so that you will have no hope of curing him alone. I can feel the cold set into his bones.”

 

 

   And again the men started and began to call her witch, and again Jojen Reed quelled them in angry tones and bade them not speak of things they knew nothing of, and then he addressed the lady once more, asking her,

 

 

   “Can you see what we might do to help him? I have not that power.”

 

 

   “Bring him before me, and I shall aid him, for I have the power needed,” said the lady, and though the men shrank from her and at first would not let her near the King, at last their fear that he might be truly lost overcame their fear of her, for the King had neither spoken nor moved in many hours and was beginning to seem more dead than alive to them, and they none of them had the skill to heal him themselves.

 

 

   The lady did not rise when the King was laid by her, but she did bend over him so near as to almost kiss his cheek, the clusters of ice in her hair tinkling with the movement of her, and a murmur of discomfort went up among the men before she reached towards her neck and then it seemed that they all together noticed that she bore a strange jewel there, a large and lustrous ruby set in a choker of gold, and that the stone was as red as a beating heart and shone as if the light of the fire were within it, and the lady Shireen brought her fingers to the stone and touched it briefly, and then laid her fingers lightly against the King's pallid lips, and a surge of life went through him and opened his eyes, and the deathly pallor which had come over him lately disappeared, but not until he spoke did the red as though she had placed drops of blood upon his mouth fade.

 

 

   “Where am I?” asked the King, his hand seeking Jojen Reed, who sank to his knees by his lord's side just as the other men went to their knees in awe at what they had witnessed, and the lady Shireen spoke quietly to him and said,

 

 

   “This is the Nightfort, my lord. You were taken ill on the way, but now you are here and you are healed.”

 

 

   “The Nightfort?” King Bran uttered in shock, and then furrowed his brow and looked to Jojen Reed and said,

 

 

   “Yes of course, how could we have forgotten...” and the Greenseer clasped his King's hand and told him,

 

 

   “This is the lady Shireen, my King, and it was by her gift that you are restored to us,” and the King looked upon the lady as if seeing her for the first time, and was startled, but his gratitude and goodness were such that he only took his hand from Jojen Reed's and placed it upon hers instead, and said,

 

 

   “Lady, I know now that I was very near death, for I felt it in my heart that I would never wake again when the sleep took me, and I and the North owe you a great debt for how you have aided me. Is there anything you would crave of me that I can give you? You have only to name it and it will be yours if it can be granted within the bounds of honour.”

 

 

   “That is for you to say, my lord,” the lady replied, soft and sad,

 

 

   “But there is one thing that I would ask of you, that may be within your gift if you truly mean what you here have promised.”

 

 

   “Name it, and it will be yours. I swear it,” the King declared, and the lady waited a moment only before uttering the terrible price of the King's honour, for he had bound himself and could not refuse her when she had saved his life and he had spoken as he had.

 

 

   “I shall take you at your word, and if you are truly a man of honour as well as a king, you will not repent of your vow,” she said softly,

 

 

   “For I would ask that you find for me a husband, brave and fair, among those sworn to you, to take me for his bride, and bring him to me here.”

 

 

   Among the gasps of horror rising from his party the King's voice was a shaken thing but assured, as he replied,

 

 

   “Lady, that is impossible!”

 

 

   “So then the honour of a King is for naught and his word is no more to be relied upon than the empty howling of the wind?” she asked, and King Bran looked away into the face of Jojen Reed and at last sighed.

 

 

   “You shall have your boon, lady,” he said, dully, taking back his hand, and he looked upon her no more for the weight of his promise was too heavy to bear, and instead he took his leave and ordered his men to ride with him at once back to Winterfell that he might see the terrible thing done, and none but the Greenseer noticed that the lady Shireen watched after them with a mingling of hope and pain in her storm-blue eyes and an icy tear upon her stony cheek which shone purer than the gold at her throat.

 

 

   Never had the King and his men ridden so hard before, and so when they reached Winterfell at last again, all the household was in uproar by the way they had returned so soon and without a word as to their arrival or the abandoning of their purpose at the Wall, but when the Queen greeted them with worry upon her brow as she embraced first her King and secondly her brother, Jojen Reed, and asked what brought them back so soon and so sombre, the King broke his silence of the last many days and told them all,

 

 

   “I have returned to you a King who may have proven himself forsworn, and it is more than I can bear to live with,” and the Queen looked to her brother in fright as the lady Sansa spoke up.

 

 

   “But that surely cannot be - what has come to pass for you to say such a thing?” she asked, for she knew as well as they all that her brother the King was the most honourable of men, and that he would never swear any oath he did not intend to hold to, and so the King bade them all join him and his men within the great hall so that he might tell them the whole bitter tale.

 

 

   “I was taken ill upon the road from Deep Lake - some chill of exhaustion which settled in my bones and would not leave - and we were so beset by storms by then that we could not turn back, and so my men forged ahead and I shall see them all rewarded for it, for it saved my life, as you will hear,” he explained from his throne, his Queen by his side holding his hand and watching him with concern, her brother Jojen Reed at the King's other side silent and impassive as Bran went on,

 

 

   “When at last we came to the Nightfort I was close to death, and so we stopped there at that forgotten place.”

 

 

   “The Nightfort? Does that still stand?” Arya Stark asked with a frown, for she was not the only among those assembled who was surprised by that old name and struggled to recall what last was heard of the place, and Jojen Reed spoke up to say,

 

 

   “It is little more than a ruin, now, but we took refuge there hoping we might be able to tend the King better while sheltered.”

 

 

   “I would that it were as if it had never stood, or that you had not been so afraid for me, so that we might never have thought to go there, for it was so far from my mind before we came there that it was not even on my list to visit,” Bran confessed wearily, and one of the men of his party uttered a fearful,

 

 

   “The place is cursed and so is she!”

 

 

   “She?” asked the Queen, and her eyes lit with fresh fear as they sought her husband, and though he held her hand close in reassurance there was none in his voice when he said,

 

 

   “I know not what curse if any lies on the Nightfort, or its lady, but it is for her that I would wish that it had fallen into distant memory if only it did not sicken me to wish that anyone living within my borders should be abandoned and so forgotten, let alone one who would do me such a service as she has without even first asking a price for it.”

 

 

   “Tell us of this lady,” Sansa Stark pleaded, afraid for the look on her dear brother's face, but also intrigued by this mention of a lady so fearsome she was thought cursed, and her plea was echoed by most, and so King Bran waved his free hand for silence and went on.

 

 

   “I slept in sickness so I know this only as I was told, but when my men brought me into the great hall of the Nightfort, though that place is abandoned and steeped in the neglect of years, there was a fire lit in the hearth and before the fire sat a lady who named herself Shireen, and it was by her hand that I was healed and the terrible chill lifted from me to let me live on, though I know not how it was accomplished, for she herself had clusters of ice in her hair which did not melt and her skin was the cold blue of frost excepting where it was ruined by the greyscale,” he said heavily, and cries went up among the listeners that indeed she must be a wight, a remnant of the dread creatures they had all fought in the Winter War, and calling to demand whether she had been killed to keep them all safe from this horror, and then the King raised his voice in anger at them and demanded silence and respect for the lady who brought him back from the brink of death, for his honour would not allow her murder to be called for after such service.

 

 

   “The lady was no wight, I tell you,” Jojen Reed confirmed,

 

 

   “Nor a witch, though even I am unsure how she saved our King though I witnessed it with my own eyes, but save him she did and she is owed a debt by the North for that deed!”

 

 

   “Even though I would rather that I had perished on the road than have to ask now for your aid in paying it,” said the King with a sorrowful heart, and his Queen stroked his hand and asked him,

 

 

   “Did she demand a price for the healing of you after all, my love? Whatever it was, we will surely pay it, for my dear brother is not wrong - we owe her your life and so everything.”

 

 

   “I believe now that my life was too dearly bought, though she asked nothing before I offered her whatever she would have in repayment of the debt,” the King confessed wearily, and Arya Stark demanded,

 

 

   “So what is it that must be paid to this lady?”

 

 

“A price I cannot pay myself, though I would to the Gods that I might,” the King replied, looking to his Queen with a bitter smile, and then telling them,

 

 

   “For I swore that she would have whatever she asked of me to repay the debt for having saved my life, and she asked that one of the men sworn to me should marry her.”

 

 

   A silence fell upon the crowd, and then the Giantsbane spoke, practical and coarse,

 

 

   “That might not be such an ill thing - is she fine beneath the frost, this lady? Mayhap she could be warmed!”

 

 

   “Though Jojen Reed is not mistaken and she is indeed no wight, she appears more dead than alive, marred by greyscale and fearful to behold,” said the King, unable to lie,

 

 

   “She was the most unlovely and terrible lady that I ever saw.”

 

 

   Silence again filled the hall, and with it the King's despair seemed to come upon him more closely, so that he leaned towards the Queen who kissed his hand consolingly, and a clear breath of relief passed through those men present who already had wives and so were safe from what was to come.

 

 

   “So you can't pay the price, and to keep your honour clean another must pay it for you,” Ser Gendry spoke aloud as though to be certain, and beside him his own lady, the King's sister lady Arya struck him upon the arm as the King nodded gravely and said,

 

 

   “That is so.”

 

 

   “Then let my lord Reed do it - he is wifeless and forever upheld as the King's champion as though his loyalty were greater than that of other men, it should fall to him!” called Rollam Westerling, forever embittered by the fortunes of his family and his own lack of a natural place anywhere, though King Bran had been kind to him and allowed him his place at court in the North, and there were some few who seized on the notion and echoed it, but then another voice called clear above the rest, crying,

 

 

   “What about the Prince? Is not he the best suited to protecting the honour of the King his brother? Have the Prince wed to repay our King's debts, and give him a purpose at last!”

 

 

   Who it was said it was never revealed, but it took hold of the people in a way that could not be denied, though it is likely that the origin of the thought neglected to claim ownership of it for the same reason that no one would meet the eye of the Prince as they nodded and cried in favour of it, for it gripped them precisely because although they adored their King and his sisters the ladies Stark, so long lost and thought dead and so greatly celebrated once returned to them, near to a one, they feared and all but shunned the youngest Stark for that fear.

 

 

   The wolf-prince raised on Skagos and come back to fight as his brother could not in the wars was hero and monster both in the eyes of the people, for though they could not deny his blood and the right it gave him, nor how bravely and well he fought for the North when called upon, he was distant and fierce and renowned for his temper and the fiery wrath which served him so well in battle, where it was said that he became the image of his direwolf and fought as though possessed, a warg-warrior rumoured to be impossible to bring out of the bloodlust until not a single foe was left standing and to make a practice of feeding on the flesh of those he had slain just as in the grim tales of the people of the dreaded black isle where he had been sent as a child to keep him alive until there was need of him.

 

 

   For all that and the fact that he chose to retain the look of that place rather than allowing himself to be clad and groomed in the style of Northern lords, he was considered by most to be still all but feral, and it was felt that despite his fell deeds during the wars in his brother-King's name and stead, he was not now wanted at Winterfell, he and his slavering direwolf both nothing but a dark shadow at the edges of King Bran the Rebuilder's court, tolerated only because the ties of blood bound deeper than anything for the remaining Starks, so harshly dealt with by fate, and it was even whispered on occasion that it would be better if the King would only let the Prince return to Skagos rather than trying to keep the savagery of the wolf-lord on a leash of blood and half-forgotten familial love that the Prince barely suffered to bind him at the best of times.

 

 

   Those who feared the Skagosi the most often went further in their low view of the Prince, calling him dangerous and unhinged, citing his typical unwillingness to so much as sit at table for meals with his family and the way he would wander for moons on end with no company but that of his direwolf, speaking to no one by choice, as evidence that he was not fit for anything but war, that he had been too badly damaged by his time on the black isle and could never now live among ordinary folk again no matter the kindnesses his family sought to show him to bring him back into the fold in truth.

 

 

   The King had been speaking against the suggestion of Jojen Reed for as Greenseer he could not be wed for such a purpose, but when the cry went up to consider the Prince as the best match and the natural choice for one who could take the King's own place when of course he could not pay the price himself, King Bran hesitated and looked first to his Queen and then to his sisters lady Sansa and lady Arya, and he began to protest it though the cries were strengthening, each having some further reason why it was the best possible answer, when the Prince himself, silent and remaining on the periphery of all things until now, stepped forward, his presence causing all others to shy from him and grow silent themselves.

 

 

   “My brother, I will wed your beldam for you and quit you of your debts,” he spoke, harsh with the old tongue, for he spoke so rarely and most often rejected the speech preferred and understood by most, having grown unused to it in all his years so far from all that was civilised, and certainly the lordly ways and tone of all at court, and with that ever-present hint of violence, a rasp of steel on stone, a challenge that said he had not had his fill of blood yet that day but more than his fill of others and their words, and though it was final and clear, still the King shook his head and replied,

 

 

   “Rickon - I cannot thank you, you have done too much - I cannot accept - ” and it was beseeching, for the King above all knew too well that the Prince wanted least of all things to be tied to any one place, something which cannot be avoided with a wife, but Rickon Stark stood firm.

 

 

   “I took your place in battle, I will take your place in this,” he said without feeling, and had it been any other they would never have dared argue with him but the King only looked upon his brother in despair and grief and said,

 

 

   “I cannot accept, you have not even seen the lady, I cannot ask this of you, not you, my brother,” but the wolf-lord did not relent, and turned instead to all the assembled who moments before had supported this idea, and with a false but ruthless smile he called,

 

 

   “But it is the will of your people, brother, and haven't they the right of it? Who better to stand in for you and save your honour? Who better to be your truest champion? Have I not proven that I alone deserve the title, that I will gladly be your second in all things, whatever the deed needs doing?”

 

 

   He turned then back to the King, and said very softly,

 

 

   “You have not asked. I am offering,” then raised his voice anew in a clear challenge to all who would oppose his decision, swiping the King's own wine-cup from where Bran had not touched it where it was set before him in welcome when he entered his halls once more, and declared,

 

 

   “So drink, all of you, to my bride!”

 

 

   And as he drained the cup and then tossed it aside where it clanged hollow and ringing against a wall, his brother the King sank his head into his hands and said, dull and hoarse but unyielding,

 

 

   “Not until you have seen her. I will not accept until you have first seen her,” and the Queen laid her arm about his shoulders and he seemed to draw enough comfort from it to raise his head and decide,

 

 

   “Tomorrow, we ride for the Nightfort, and all those of you here who are not yet wed ride with us, and then the Prince shall see the lady Shireen in the cold light of day and with a cooler head on him than we any of us have in this moment, and all the rest of you shall look upon her too, before any of you choose her for his bride!”

 

 

   So next day in the first light of the winter morning, horses were brought from the stables and hounds from their kennels and King Bran and his companions rode away as if hunting, for the Queen had sought in her wisdom to alleviate the growing weight of trepidation which had come upon her husband and all those whom he had bidden ride with him to view the lady who must have a lord from among them by suggesting that they set out as though for sport to keep their minds from the true task at hand and thus keep spirits high as they might be, and the King had seen the merit of this and ordered it so, for he was a man wise enough to recognise the cleverness of his own lady and grant it room to work where it would, and he and his were always happier for it.

 

 

   And so it was with this, for the party though commanded not to lose or waste time on their way made good sport of their journey and felled several beasts upon their road, for the roads had grown wilder through disuse and so were used more freely by animals than men of late so that the members of the King's party needn't stray from the path much at all for their quarry, and they stopped only to dress the game they felled and to rest, and they were all such seasoned hunters and campaigners that they made good time, and only the presence of the palfrey led in their midst and meant for the lady to ride back with them reminded them of their cause and dampened their spirits.

 

 

   When they came to the Nightfort it was as the King and the men who had been there with him had told, and all were gripped by the unease which seemed to lie over the place, all but Jojen Reed the Greenseer who could see past the shroud of terror upon it, and the Prince, who had been waiting for them at the gates, for he did not like to ride with others for any purpose and had ranged ahead with his direwolf instead as was his wont, and whose aspect showed nothing of fear but only the anger which never left him so was not strange, and for the King's part his heart was too burdened with guilt for what was to be done to leave room for any terrors, and so it was these three who headed the party which rode beyond the ruined gates of the Nightfort and into its yard.

 

 

   “So where is this hall then?” cried the Giantsbane, who had come for he was unwed and did not seek a bride but wished to look upon this strange lady of whom he had been told, for he would know for himself whether there was any wight in her and would know the truth of it, for few had fought them longer or harder in the war than he, and the King allowed Jojen Reed to assist him in dismounting and gestured,

 

 

   “Within,” but already the Prince's great black beast was pushing through the doors to the hall, and he himself following after so that the King and his companions had to hasten to follow, and when they did they saw that the lady still sat as she had been left, and the fire still roared, and the ice in her hair was still un-melted and unchanged, and the massive direwolf stood before her and regarded her as intensely as did the Prince, and she hailed them all in her soft, sweet voice.

 

 

   “Greetings, my lords, and be welcome to the Nightfort,” she told them, and again all but the King, Jojen Reed, and the Prince were taken aback as they stood before her, afraid and repulsed, and all but the King were silent, but he greeted her in return, courteous as ever for his honour could permit no less, but with a clear heavy heart beneath his words.

 

 

   “Greetings, my lady. You see we have come, as I promised you, to repay the debt,” he replied, and on the tail of his words came the exclamation of Rollam Westerling, who was struck in particular by fear at the sight of her, being not a man of great intellect or particular valour and having not seen much of the great wars himself owing to circumstance, and who for having been so afraid was now ashamed of his own cowardice and thus prone to bluster and a little cruelty at the expense of another, and he uttered a foul oath for the look of her when the King's words brought him from the utmost of his fears, and then recovered to jibe,

 

 

   “Our brave King was not wrong when he spoke of this lady one of us must woo to wife on his behalf - I suppose we must think of the sweetness of her kisses and not hang back!”

 

 

   “Since one of you must indeed marry her, here is no cause for jesting, Ser!” said the King, harsh in his throat, for he was a good man and a Stark and he knew that it was the wound it would be to his honour if this debt was left unpaid and he became forsworn by it that had brought them all here and he felt the weight of guilt for that but he would also not tolerate any lady to be spoken ill of in his presence, but it seemed that Westerling had yet to expend the bile of his craven reaction in cruelty, for he forgot himself entirely, eyes still fixed upon the lady, and declared,

 

 

   “ _Marry_ her! Well it shall not be I - I would sooner mate with the Imp himself!”

 

 

   “Peace, Ser!” said the King, his voice always so gentle now a taste of the lash he could easily order,

 

 

   “This is churl's treatment of a lady - you will mend your speech or I shall have you stripped of your position and you shall be of the North no longer!”

 

 

   And all the other lords watched in grim silence, for at that last remark the lady had begun to weep, bowing her face into her hands most pathetically, and despite their remaining fear they were sickened by the words of their fellow, and some looked away from her in pity once the chastisement of Rollam Westerling saw him shrink away to be less noticed.

 

 

   But Prince Rickon looked steadily at the lady, and something in the way she had held herself so proudly, regal and gracious at their entrance, and seemed now so defeated and alone, so small despite the fearsomeness of her aspect, the way she had crumpled in grief and hopelessness like a deer brought low at last by the hounds at hunt, stoked the fire of the rage always in him, and he glared about him at the other lords.

 

 

   “Why the sideways glances, friends? Westerling was always an ill-mannered cur no one could tolerate and this matter is already settled - did I not tell the King that I would marry this lady and pay his debt in his stead?” he challenged them, and again his brother looked upon him with grief and Jojen Reed looked upon him with a sharp gaze, for it seemed to him that he could see something more in this now than he had before, but none of the other lords dared meet the Prince's gaze or reply, and so he growled his contempt of them and declared,

 

 

   “Marry her I will, as I said, if she will have me!”

 

 

   And then all eyes were upon him for he strode up to the weeping lady and went to his knees before her, and a gasp went up among the men for the wolf-lord kneeled to no one, not even the King, though the King had never demanded such a thing from his most dearly beloved and trusted brother, and the lady raised her head and held it up again with that pride of bearing, and beheld him as he asked,

 

 

   “My lady Shireen, will you take me for your husband?”

 

 

   “Not you, too, Prince Rickon,” she uttered in her unexpectedly pleasing voice, soft and sad,

 

 

   “Oh, not you too.”

 

 

   And he looked at her in bewilderment, for he was unused to having any question him or his words, and she shook her head and the ice in her hair clinked musically together in its clusters, and she said,

 

 

   “Surely you do but jest, like Ser Westerling?”

 

 

   “I was never further from it in my life,” replied the Prince, coldly and with stiff lips, and the lady's gaze grew wet again and she cautioned,

 

 

   “Then think on it before it is too late - will you indeed wed with one as ugly and diseased and so long past the bloom of youth where ladies are best married as I? What sort of wife would I be for the King's own brother, the greatest hero yet living in the North? And what will Queen Meera and the ladies Stark say when you bring such a wife as me to court?”

 

 

   “No one will say anything that is not courteous to my wife,” vowed the Prince darkly,

 

 

   “I shall know how to guard you from that.”

 

 

   “Maybe so. But yourself? You will be shamed, and all through me,” said the lady, and it was as if it overwhelmed her to think, for she sank again into weeping, and it was to Rickon for a moment as if the strange jewel about her throat were more like to a collar than anything else, and that he felt in himself as though his own neck were suddenly encircled by chains, and the deep storm-blue of her eyes as she wept and shuddered seemed to call to something in him which took flight at once from his breast and winged its way to her and could never be returned, and amidst all this, he took her hand and it was so cold it made his skin sing and sear with pain to touch it, but he held it all the same.

 

 

   “Lady, if I can guard you, be very sure I can also guard myself,” he said, and then he set steel to his tone and told her,

 

 

   “Now come with me back to Winterfell, for the hour of our return is the hour of our wedding.”

 

 

   “Truly,” said the cold lady, her tears already frozen upon her face and making the stone side shine as though silvered,

 

 

   “Though it is a hard thing to believe, you shall not regret this wedding, Prince Rickon.”

 

 

   And she rose by his aid and was flanked by the great black direwolf who showed no fear of her, and before all the rest of them and even the King, she was led out from the hall into the yard, and the moment her foot crossed the threshold, the blazing fire in the hearth within winked out into chilled ash as if it had not been lit in years, and the men murmured for it and more so at the way ice curled from the ground about her ankles as she walked, and the horse they had brought for her would not suffer her to be lifted upon its saddle to ride with them, for it rolled its eyes and stamped in fear and could not be gentled, but the direwolf laid itself by her side and the Prince lifted her upon its back silently and fastened his own cloak about her shoulders, for barring the great mass of her dark hair she wore only her white dress and he did not feel the loss, for perhaps of them all he was best used to the cold, and having touched her hand he felt nothing else.

 

 

   All the road back to Winterfell their party was subdued, for whatever the King had decreed and his Greenseer had confirmed, all still believed that the cold lady who rode among them on the Prince's direwolf was some witch or wight, and the terror of her presence lay heavy upon them every moment so that they hardly dared speak or look her way, and the King saw this and thinned his lips, but could not order them to be merry, and Jojen Reed saw this and kept his own counsel, for he was beginning to understand more than he had.

 

 

   The Prince ranged ahead as was his habit and so did not see or hear, though he knew, for it was clear enough that fear of his bride to be was what choked all life from their band as they wended their way back to Winterfell, but in the evenings when they camped as they must for the roads were too treacherous to ride in the dark, he sat a little way off from the main fire and watched as the lady Shireen sat still and silent by it, and though the fire raged and did not go out though none dared approach to feed it all the night, the ice in her hair never melted, nor did she lay herself down to sleep, and when in weariness Rickon allowed himself to view her through the eyes of his direwolf, he felt that her hands were yet frozen too, and it seared his tongue when the wolf willingly kissed her palm.

 

 

   Word ran ahead of them as they drew nearer the castle, and people came flocking out to see Prince Rickon and his terrible bride go by; and as they passed the voices of the crowd sank away, more for fear of her than of the Prince and his wrath or the King's stern gaze, and here and there men made signs before them to ward off evil, or a woman cried out, ' _Gods save us!_ ' in dismay. And so they came to the castle gates and rode inside, and the lady Shireen's face shone silver with ice when first she met the Queen and her sisters-to-be.

 

 

   True to his word, Prince Rickon and the lady Shireen were married within the hour in the godswood by the hand of the King himself and with the Queen attendant upon the bride, and after, Ser Gendry was foremost of the King's men to come forward to kiss the cold lady's frozen cheek, for the lady Arya had chosen well her knight.

 

 

   Then followed all the rest, but the words strangled in their throats when they would have wished her and the prince joy of their marriage, so that they could scarcely speak, and the poor lady Shireen looked down upon bent head after bent head, and at the ladies who came forward to touch her fingertips as briefly as might be, but could not bear to kiss her cheek.

 

 

   Only the direwolves came forward and licked her hands with their warm tongues and looked into her face with eyes that took no account of her hideous aspect, for the eyes of wolves see differently from those of mere men.

 

 

   At the feasting that followed in the Great Hall, the talk and laughter all along the tables was feverish and forced, a hollow pretence at gladness, and through it all Prince Rickon and his bride sat rigidly beside the King and Queen at the High Table, and when at last the feasting was over and the squires set back the tables and began to make ready for dancing, the company thought that now Rickon might be free for a while to leave her side as surely he must be desirous of doing, for all knew that the Prince despised such occasions above all else and that to suffer through one in full with such a lady would likely be more than he could bear, but he said,

 

 

   “Bride and groom must lead the first dance together,” and offered his hand to the lady Shireen.

 

 

   She took it, with a sad expression which some believed was the closest her twisted face might come to a smile, and went forward to open the dance with him, and throughout the long and stately measure which followed, with the King's eye upon them and the Prince's also, and that of the ladies Stark who sat grim and stiff with the Queen, no one in the Hall from youngest page to most trusted bannerman dared to look as though anything was amiss, though in all the time since returning to his family the Prince had never once danced, and the lady Shireen's feet left trails of frost in her wake and the soft jingling of the ice in her hair accompanied the music eerily.

 

 

   At long last the evening wore to an end, with the last measure danced and the minstrels departed, the last wine-cup drained, and the bride and groom escorted to their chamber high in the keep and far from all others, which was the preference of the Prince when he could not avoid sleeping within walls, and it was with a heavy heart but in silence that the King at last pressed his brother's hand hard and then allowed the Queen and Jojen Reed to bear him away, and even the ladies Stark had no word for their brother when they left him there with his bride.

 

 

   The chamber had been made ready by the Queen, her sympathies for all involved and her feelings of helplessness that she could do nothing to relieve the sorrow of her dear King nor make this eve any easier for her good-brother who had suffered too much already in what had been not so long a life as all that leading her to see to what comfort she might give in this way, and so it was full of flickering lights and shadows from the fire upon the hearth which sprang brighter when the lady Shireen entered, and from the candles which burned in tall sconces either side of the carved and curtained bed, so that the creatures in the woodland scenes upon the walls seemed to move and come and go, and the whole chamber seemed part of some enchanted forest at the edges of reality.

 

 

   When all those who had brought them there were gone and the door closed and barred, Prince Rickon flung himself into the deeply cushioned chair beside the fire and sat gazing into the flames, not looking to see where his bride might be, in a reversal of his actions all the nights they had camped before coming here at last, but though the fire was unaffected, a sudden draught drove the candle-flames sideways and then lower, and the embroidered creatures hung upon the walls stirred as though on the edge of life, and somewhere far off, as though from the heart of the enchanted forest, he fancied he heard the distant echo of a horn.

 

 

   There was a faint movement at the foot of the bed, and the rustle of a woman's skirt, and a low, sweet voice said,

 

 

   “Rickon, my lord and love, have you no word for me? Can you not even bear to look my way?”

 

 

   And the Prince forced himself to turn his head and look at the speaker - and then sprang up in amazement, for there between the candle sconces, still wearing the lady Shireen's white gown, for there had been no time for her to be clad any different than she arrived, and with the lady Shireen's strange jewel upon her neck like a golden collar set with a beating heart of red stone, stood a maiden who also bore the lady Shireen's grey scars upon her cheek and neck, but could not be her, for there was no terror in this lady's aspect nor any ice in her long, dark hair which fell about her so she appeared as a bright star or the moon in a cloud of night, nor any chill as of death over her or upon her cream-pale skin, her large, blue eyes waiting to meet his and her hands held out to him while a little smile quivered at the corners of her rosy mouth.

 

 

   “Lady,” he said at half-breath, not sure whether he was awake or dreaming,

 

 

   “Who are you truly? Where is my wife, the lady Shireen?”

 

 

   “I am your wife, the lady Shireen,” said she soft as a whisper and sweet as a lover's kiss,

 

 

   “Whom you found in the ruins of the forgotten Nightfort and wedded this day in settlement of your King and brother's debt - and maybe, a little, in kindness.”

 

 

   “But - I do not understand,” uttered the Prince,

 

 

“You are so changed - ”

 

 

   “Yes, I am changed, a little, am I not? Though you may still know me by these,” she told him, and raised her one lovely hand to pass over her scars with a twist of regret to her lips, though transfixed by her eyes as he was Rickon hardly thought of them at all, and then she went on,

 

 

   “I was under a foul spell, and as yet I am only partly freed from it. But now for a little while, I may be with you in my true seeming. Could my lord learn to be content with his bride?”

 

 

   She came a little towards him, and neither ice nor frost rose from her steps any longer to catch at her feet, though they were hesitant, and he saw in her face a desperate hope and an echo of that which had seemed to draw him to her even when she sat terrible and miserable in the Nightfort and beset on all sides by the viciousness of fear and misunderstanding, and he reached out and caught her into his arms.

 

 

   “Content?” he asked her, and laughed for it,

 

 

   “Dear lady, I have never in my life been content, nor will I need to learn how to be so with you,” but at the breaking of the hope in her eyes and the turning of her face from him to hide her scars within the great silken fall of her hair, Rickon gentled his tone and turned her back with a tender touch to her greyed cheek, telling her,

 

 

   “Do not misunderstand me and despair, my lady, or turn your face from me, for there is nothing there that I would not look upon, and my sorrows have no part in knowing that it is you who is now my wife.”

 

 

   “I hardly dared hope,” whispered she,

 

 

   “But I had thought that perhaps at least we might have understanding between us - for I believe you felt a little of what I, too, felt upon our meeting - that we have both of us been trapped by things beyond our control, and cannot be made free by our own doing alone.”

 

 

   “I felt it,” he confessed,

 

 

   “When first I saw you, I felt it as though something of me was also in you.”

 

 

   “And it was, and is,” she replied softly, and then looked upon him first with grave anguish and then deep solemnity as she said,

 

 

   “And now I fear my dearest love you feel further trapped by our marriage, that you must now always be trammelled and caged for it, but I tell you that is not how it will be, and I shall tell you why it is that you felt a kinship with me, those first moments, and why it will be as I promised and you shall not regret wedding me.”

 

 

   “Tell me what you can and must,” he bade her with all gravity, but he did not release her nor did she stray from his grasp, and with this at least he was content, for he wondered still at the warm suppleness of her, and how she drew easy breath and was truly alive, and she nodded and began her tale.

 

 

   “I will tell you all, and only pray you will believe me, for I understand too well that it may seem fantastic, and parts are that indeed,” she told him with regret,

 

 

   “But I must ask you to believe that I have been alone as you found me at the Nightfort since the day it was lost in the midst of the war, and that I saw its fall with my own eyes, for I was there upon the field that day.”

 

 

   “But that was a massacre, that is why the keep was lost - what madness put you in the midst of that?” asked Rickon with a frown for how grave the danger would have been to her in truth, for he knew, though only through being told, that he was also there upon that day, upon that fell field of battle, and that the Nightfort was given up for lost because it was overrun and could not be retaken with those few who survived there to attempt it, and though he had no memory of his own participation in that fight - as he had little memory of much of the wars beyond the tang of blood in his mouth and the cloying stench of death, and the nightmares which still haunted him and sent him howling into the wilds with none but his direwolf for company to try and purge his mind through the beast in whom he retreated during the wars themselves - he was beginning to recall what he had been told of that battle after he had been removed from it with some wound too grave to continue on with that day even for him, and found it incredible that she might have been present and yet survived.

 

 

   “A lacking care for my safety, both on my own part and that of others,” she told him sorrowfully, and then reached to place her fingers lightly against his shoulder and trail the precise length of the scar he knew lay beneath his clothing there - relic of the wars and some fell blow he could not recall receiving but which, the scar itself revealed, must have been both deep and terrible indeed but also treated with all swiftness and skill, that he had his arm yet and no memory of a long recovery, of any recovery, in fact - and he followed the path of her hand with his eyes as she said softly,

 

 

   “But I have some small skill at healing, and some power of my own, and so I used it for those who were in need...”

 

 

   And it seemed to Rickon as she raised her gaze to his that the fog of bloodlust and of his thoughts mingled with that of the wolf came upon him as if in an old dream half-forgotten, and that the scent of blood and death and ice was again in his nose as ever throughout the wars, and he felt the ghost of pain in the old scar, and the sidelong bite of a needle like the pinpricks of ice on bare flesh, and the weight of his direwolf across his chest, and just as in that dream, he raised his shaking hand to her face to cover the grey there, and then she blinked and he returned to himself and the present, and found that he did not look upon some nameless woman whose tears spilled over his hand even as her own worked to save his other and his life with it, but his new bride, and yet they had the same deep, blue eyes and the same rough, grey scars and the same soft, dark hair.

 

 

   “It was you,” he understood, as she smiled and nodded into the curve of his palm so that it was as if he caressed her.

 

 

   “It was I,” she said sweetly, and he wondered at it and passed his thumb over where her scars became smooth, pale skin, warm to the touch, and understood further,

 

 

   “That is why Shaggydog seemed to know you,” speaking of how his great black direwolf had given her his back to ride upon and kissed her hand even when it was yet ice, and Rickon marvelled,

 

 

   “You saved my life that day, lady, though I was half mad with warring and you might have lost your own life on that field... I do not wonder that I forgot you, so far gone was I, and I never truly knew you then, but I know you now...”

 

 

   “I lost more than my life when the Nightfort was lost,” she told him sadly,

 

 

   “And if you would have the tale of it, you will know me better and truly, my lord, and you will see why indeed you may yet have some joy of this marriage.”

 

 

   “My lady, tell me whatever you will, but understand that what you have told me already is enough that I know I'll not be shamed to have you for my wife,” said the prince, for knowing her for the lady who braved such a battlefield as that was to tend wounds with his among them and who would even tend to such as he was then, thought by most to be more wolf than lord, he could not but feel pride in her, for his time among the folk of the black isle had taught him that brave women are doubly favoured by the gods before all others, and that clever women are more favoured still, and so he knew himself to have been granted their favour by having her grant him hers.

 

 

   “Perhaps what I have to tell you will even give you cause to find pleasure in the fact,” she replied quietly, her eyes aglow with hope she did not voice, and a tremor as of something being released in her was in her next words when she said,

 

 

   “For I was the Princess Shireen Baratheon, only child of the One True King Stannis, who sought to free the North and was lost with the Nightfort.”

 

 

   “He had a daughter?” asked the prince, frowning for he never met King Stannis who fell at Nightfort, nor had he ever known that there was a rightful heir to that crown.

 

 

   “He had,” she said sadly,

 

 

   “A daughter, cursed in infancy with greyscale, and yet healed though the scars remained, and cursed again later by a witch who was for a time close advisor to the King during the wars and who followed the faith of the Red God.”

 

 

   “Cursed?”

 

 

   “Doubly so,” said the lady Shireen,

 

 

   “For as the winter war grew more dire, the Red Witch grew convinced that a great sacrifice was needed, by burning in the way of her faith, and it was her conviction that the sacrifice must be one of king's blood to appease a prophecy of her Red God and secure his favour in battle and ensure the victory of the King, and he would have slain her for the suggestion when her choice alighted upon me as the last of his living blood that was not in himself, but he had need of her yet and so allowed her to live.”

 

 

   “He ought have slain her himself and had done with it,” growled Rickon, and held her the harder,

 

 

   “Washed his hands of any god who would demand the death of an innocent in such a way!”

 

 

   “Towards the end, the King knew no gods but Honour and Duty,” said the lady Shireen sadly,

 

 

   “But he had seen evidence of the Red Witch's power and was unwilling to slay her while some use might yet be had of her, and so when things grew truly grim and the King rode out himself to fight, she came to me, and made her insistent case for my death by pyre to secure victory for my father, but I had no belief in her or her words and my faith lay only in my father the King and his allies, and I would not heed her though she attempted to order me to it.”

 

 

   “As well you did not,” murmured the prince, for it sat ill with him to think of such a thing, and a look of pain passed across the lady Shireen's sweet face to hear it.

 

 

   “Had I truly thought that I could spare my father's life, or any others, by doing so, I would have,” she vowed,

 

 

   “But I did not, and so instead I went out to make myself as useful as I might by living, but it angered the Red Witch, and so when I returned as the tide of battle changed and I could see that the day was lost, she cursed me that I sought to withstand her.”

 

 

   “What manner of curse did she lay upon you?” asked the prince, caught by her tale and yet caught almost the more by the depth of her eyes and the sweetness of her voice despite the sorrow of both, for he saw also the strength, and was drawn to it.

 

 

   “To be forgotten,” said she,

 

 

   “She cursed me to remain at the place where my father and future were lost through my refusal to be sacrificed upon her word to her Red God, forever alone and forever waking, waiting, for one who would return me to the land of the living and give me a new family, a new future, and as yet the curse is no more than partly broken.”

 

 

   “Which part is broken and how? How can you be free?” asked the prince at once, and she looked up at him gravely.

 

 

   “Listen, and you shall understand only too well. I am half free of the curse, half still held by it; for half of each day I may wear my true form as I do now; for the other half I must be as I was when you took me from the Nightfort,” she told him, and then closing her eyes went on,

 

 

   “For though you wed me only to free your brother the King and uphold his honour, you need not keep me to wife if even my true form cannot appeal to you. Even now, I could walk the world as I am, no longer bound to the site of my losses, and return to my father's lands in exile, to live out my days.”

 

 

   “I thought to save my brother's honour, it is true,” said Rickon severely,

 

 

   “And I never wished for a wife before, but I will not now send you from me if you do not wish to go. I will not take you from one cage only to send you to another for lack of any other place.”

 

 

   “Truly?” she asked softly, warning him,

 

 

   “For a hard choice now lies before you - even if you keep me to wife, the curse remains half-broken only, and you must know that whatever happens, these scars will never be healed. Even in my truest form, I am marred and there are those who will find me terrible to behold, unworthy of such a lord as you.”

 

 

   “Truly,” he told her, and trailed his fingers through her hair from her scarred cheek,

 

 

   “For I see no choice of mine to make in this - nor do I see anything terrible in you. I think we are both of us scarred, my lady, though perhaps a part of my scars lie within and that is why they call me monster, where yours lie upon your face. Are we both to be judged and discarded for them when we hadn't the choice of being given them?”

 

 

   “So you would keep me by you, even if for half the day I must yet always be truly terrible, frozen and dead to look upon? You would not send me away - or go from me - even then?” she asked him, and he looked down into her deep blue eyes and spoke the truth.

 

 

   “I will not send you away.”

 

 

   “Then you must make the choice, if truly you mean to keep me for wife - it is for you to say, whether I am to be foul by day, or myself and therefore less so by night, or whether you will have me foul by night, and less so by day,” said the lady Shireen.

 

 

   “I would have you never again speak of yourself as you truly are as foul,” Rickon replied in fierce command,

 

 

   “For you are not so, and I will keep you to wife if it is your will to be so.”

 

 

   “That was indeed a lover's answer,” said she and smiled sweetly,

 

 

“But I would be as fair as I might for you; not only for the court and the daytime world that means less to me than you do, and I must have your true and only answer - what is your choice? Must I be hideous and frightful among all the Queen's fair ladies and abide their scorn and pity here, when in truth I am not quite so, and have lands and stature to rival any theirs?”

 

 

   Rickon bowed his head and took her hands in his, and met her gaze steadily.

 

 

   “If it will make you happier, be as you are by day and take your rightful place at court, and if it will make you happier still, go which way you choose, but if you choose to stay and you can only be as you are by day so as to suffer less in the eyes of others, I will accept it, and I will hear your soft voice in the dark and that will be my content,” he told her honestly,

 

 

   “Whichever way it is, it is you who must endure the most suffering, and already you have suffered too much; and being a woman, I think you have more wisdom in such things than I. Whichever way you choose to go and however you choose to do it, I will not hinder your freedom, but if you choose to be mine of your own decision, I will be more than content, for I cannot think I could ever love another as I could love you. As I do already, for knowing you as you are only this short while.”

 

 

   Then the lady Shireen bent her head into the hollow of his neck and wept and laughed together.

 

 

   “Oh, Rickon, my dearest lord! By wanting me for naught but my own self, you have broken the greatest part of the curse - by leaving the choice of my path up to me, wishing me with you as I am but allowing me my freedom - ”

 

 

   And Rickon drew her hard against him and kissed her while she put her arms round his neck, for want her he did, surprising even himself, and against her dear lips he told her so, for he was not a man who cared for the touch of others, starved as he was of true affection since early youth, and distrustful of the society of his fellow man even now, even on occasion to include his kin though he fought the instinct, and he had never thought to have any delight of a wife for her own sake, and the lady Shireen laughed and wept again for it, and was truly delightful.

 

 

   “I must ask only one thing more of you, my dearest love,” she said, and brought her hands down and set them against his breast and gently held him off, in a little, and Rickon occupied himself with unlacing her gown and drawing her back with him into the great chair by the fire, and told her,

 

 

   “If there is anything I can give my lady, it is yours, for you have somehow given me more joy than I can recall ever yet feeling in what has often felt was too long a life,” and the lady Shireen kissed him and said only,

 

 

   “I will ask upon the morning,” and sank down across his knees as he was taking her hair down in its vast entirety like a curtain of darkest night about them both, and then neither spoke a word but such words as lovers speak when alone all the rest of the night until at long last both slept entwined like the honey-suckle and the hazel sapling does in the wilds when left unchecked.

 

 

   Next day there was much bewilderment but even more tentative joy when Prince Rickon led the lady Shireen into the great hall and before the King and Queen and the ladies Stark, and King Bran bade them at once impart the tale of how the lady Shireen came to have cast off her dread veil of terror, and she told it to all present, and when finally she had done, the Queen leant forward on her throne and asked,

 

 

   “But how did you know the way to save the King?”

 

 

   “To every spell there is a key, though one that is almost beyond the power of human kind to use,” said the lady Shireen, who had been and was once again a Princess,

 

 

   “I was the key to save the King; and in saving the King, it was given to me also to call to the Prince for aid for myself,” and here she turned to Rickon and told him softly,

 

 

   “But if you had not answered my call, no one could have saved me, for the name of _that_ key is Love,” and he smiled as none present had ever yet seen him do, and kissed her so that none could doubt he loved her truly, but when he withdrew, she watched him with a purity of gaze he could not understand, and said further,

 

 

   “And now I must ask you, my dearest lord and love, to wield another key, that of Trust, for I have a boon I must crave of you, the only I shall ever crave of you again,” and the Prince and court all were again bewildered, but he had eyes solely for his lady, and told her steadfastly,

 

 

   “Whatever you ask of me that I can give you, my lady, you shall have,” and Princess Shireen's eyes filled with tears and her voice with hope and gratitude, and she uttered one simple request.

 

 

   “Cut me down with one blow to my neck, my love.”

 

 

   Then the court was all in uproar, and there were those who cried out for the Prince to do it and rid the world of such a cursed and hideous being, and the ladies Stark raised their voices in outrage, the lady Arya drawing her own blade and rising to seek out those who would say such, and it was only the calm presence of Ser Gendry which held back her wrath, and over it all the King roared for silence and condemned the request as madness, and the Queen started from her throne and beseeched the Princess Shireen to rise from where she sank to the floor with her face upturned to gaze into that of her lord, and Rickon looked down at where she knelt before him with her arms outreached in surrender and pleading, and said nothing for so long a moment that all the noise of their onlookers was quieted to tense anticipation, and then he said only, cold and dark as the unforgiving North,

 

 

   “By the axe or by the sword?”

 

 

   “By the axe, if you would be so good,” asked his bride in high, clear tones, and he watched her unblinkingly, and in a moment his direwolf was beside him bearing his great axe in its vast jaws, and he took it into his hand without taking his eyes from hers, and even as the King bellowed for intervention and the lady Sansa screamed and ran toward them, Rickon raised the shining obsidian and swung it down in a clean arc over the exposed throat of his lady, and shrieks of horror went up around them, but none saw the strike land, for a great ringing sound came from between the two, and a bright, blinding light seared red the shocked gazes of all and forced them to rub it from their eyes.

 

 

   When they looked again the wolf-lord was upon his knees with his lady in his arms, and from her neck flowed a river of blood that could not possibly be all her own, and the direwolf howled as the prince tore a charred and scorched collar of twisted gold from Shireen's neck and flung it aside where it lay dark and smouldering, the great ruby at its heart shattered and pouring forth blood endlessly.

 

 

   All the room pressed forward to see, and were shocked when the lady Shireen's white arms raised shakily and she pressed her hands to Rickon's shoulder and hand where he held her and his fingers swept away her hair from her blood-soaked neck and dress, and through the ringing that lingered in the ears of all, her laugh could be heard, sweet and clear, and then the King demanding,

 

 

   “What is the meaning of this!” and the prince drew his lady swiftly to her feet, cradling her in his arms, and she turned toward the King and Queen and cried,

 

 

   “At last - at last the curse is broken completely, and I am free, and all through the love of my lord, who trusted me above all to choose my own path and loved me as I am without reserve or judgment!”

 

 

   And the lady Sansa came towards them at last and put her arms around them both and wept for their joy and the fear she had harboured of her brother's intent, for she saw that they should all have had such perfect trust in him as he had in his wife and she also in him, and Jojen Reed nodded from his place by the King's side and the Queen called for the wedding feast to be renewed, a true wedding feast this time, and before any could make motion towards the shattered collar twisted upon the floor, the Greenseer strode toward it and picked it up upon the end of his staff, and then gave it into Ser Gendry's gloved hand where yet it oozed thickly with blood, and told him,

 

 

   “Seal it in lead and then in ice, and then return it to my keeping,” and amidst the joy of preparing the second feast and the celebration of the Prince's marriage in good faith, Ser Gendry did as he was bidden, and when again by end of day he returned to Jojen Reed, the Greenseer carried it to the newly wedded couple and presented it to them.

 

 

   “Your curse is truly ended, my lady,” he said to the Princess,

 

 

   “But I would ask that when the two of you return to Skagos, you throw it into a pyre-mountain and see it destroyed in truth,” and the King and Queen and ladies Stark started at this for the wedded couple had uttered no intention to go thither, but both the Prince and his Princess took the thing solemnly and promised to do so.

 

 

   “I am weary to my bones of warring, of blood - all blood, bonds included,” said the Prince softly,

 

 

   “And there are Starks enough in Winterfell. I will take Shireen to Skagos, and we will both know silent nights again, and true rest.”

 

 

   And the King embraced his brother and with all sorrow and pride told him,

 

 

   “If you must leave us so, I beg you, write us of your good health. I will not refuse you this simple thing when you have both suffered so much you ought have been spared, and you for my sake, my dear brother.”

 

 

   And the ladies Stark embraced them also, as did the Queen, and wished them well, and they departed on the morrow, and for seven years thereafter, it was known in Winterfell that Rickon and Shireen knew great happiness together, and during all that time, Rickon was a gentler and kinder and a more steadfast man than ever he had been before, and she knew love by him as tender as that of any lord for his lady, for truly they lived in perfect love and perfect trust, as all lovers should strive to do.

 

 

   But at the end of that time, the lady Shireen went from him - some say that she died, some that she had the blood of the Old Ones in her, for had she not herself said she had a little power? And the Old Ones cannot live for more than seven years with a mortal mate.

 

 

   In one way or another, she went from him; and something of Rickon went with her. He was as valiant as ever he had been, but the full fire of his old ruthless blazing temper returned thricefold and he was less steadfast of purpose and less kind than he had been; and he went hollow of heart all the remaining days of his life for her sake -

 

 

   -

_“But Uncle Rickon - Aunty Shireen is not dead and gone!” lectures the solemn, cherubic infant from his bed amidst a fortress of furs and pillows, and the Prince raises his bowed head to look upon the child._

_“Then why is she not here, where I must be, to help your father the King?” he asks harshly, and the little Ned pouts, too well accustomed to his uncle's temper when his aunt is not present._

_“Aunty Shireen went over the great sea to find her second-father,” he recites dutifully from memory, and is rewarded by his uncle's sudden flash of teeth, and thus continues,_

_“And she found him, and healed his heart-sickness, and she will return.”_

_“She has returned, to heal her own and that of her beloved,” a soft, sweet voice says from the dark in the doorway, and Rickon starts upright and towards it, reaching to sweep his cherished wife into his arms and kiss her without thought for the patient, solemn child in bed behind them, until Shireen draws away slightly and tells him,_

_“Bid our dear nephew goodnight, my own darling love, for this story is not yet over, and it will have no hollow-hearted, despairing end.”_

_And the Prince brings her to their nephew's side and together they bid the child a good night, and as they approach the door to take their leave, little Ned asks,_

_“May I have a light to sleep by, Aunty?”_

_And the Princess smiles and laughs a laugh like the tinkling of icicles, and blows a kiss._

_The fire in the hearth springs fair and bright, and the young direwolf upon the rug rumbles in contentment as the prince spirits his lady away with a similar sound._

 

 

_-_

 

 

 


End file.
